Live: 54 Palestinians killed, 831 wounded in 24 hours

At least nine Palestinians were arrested on Monday morning by Israeli forces in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli forces arrested also Zarifa al-Deek, after raiding her house in the early morning in Kafr al-Dik, and arrested another two brothers in Nablus.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) described the starvation in Gaza as a “man made” crisis, and called upon immediate action.

 “Food prices have increased 40 fold. Meanwhile, just outside Gaza, stockpiled in warehouses UNRWA has enough food for the entire population for over three months,” the agency said on a post on X.

It added that it receives “desperate messages of starvation” from inside the Strip, including from its own staff.

“The suffering in Gaza is man made and must be stopped. Lift the siege and let aid in safely and at scale.”

At least 13 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks since the early hours of Monday in several parts of the Strip, according to medical sources.

At least five Palestinians from one family were killed on Monday in an Israeli air strike that targeted a tent housing displaced people in the Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis, located south of Gaza, according to medical sources in Nasser medical complex.

Another two Palestinians were injured in an Israeli attack on Jabalia al-Nazla, north of Gaza, according to Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile,  other Israeli air strikes are reported to be targeting residential buildings east of Gaza City, while artillery shelling hit the southern and eastern neighbourhoods of Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip.

Good morning Middle East Eye readers, 

Here are some of the latest updates from Israel's war on Gaza and developments in the occupied West Bank

• Local media is reporting that Israeli air strikes targeted on Monday morningn the area of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. Sources told Al Jazeera that a quad copter was firing intermittently, near the Mazraa schools, located south Rimzon.

• US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he will write to the Israeli government regarding the burning of a church in the occupied West Bank, to demand accountability. He also called for Israeli settlers to be punished if it was proven that they were behind the incident.

• Local media is reporting that Israeli forces raided a house in the town of Zawata, west of Nablus, located in northern the occupied West Bank.

•  The World Food Programme said that one in every three in Gaza cannot access food for days at a time.

• The Israeli media out let Haaretz cited Israeli political sources as saying that they believe that Hamas is expected to agree soon, fully or partially, on the latest proposal presented by mediators on a ceasefire deal.

Our live blog will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are the day's key developments:

• The Palestinian death toll from Israel's war on Gaza since October 2023 has risen to at least 58,895 fatalities, with an additional 140,980 people wounded. The majority of the victims are women and children.

• Israeli forces killed at least 115 Palestinians across Gaza on Sunday, most as they waited for desperately needed food aid.

• At least 18 people have died in the the past 24 hours in Gaza due to hunger, dehydration or malnutrition, according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

• Among the dead was a four-year-old girl has died from severe malnutrition and hunger in the Gaza Strip, according to Wafa news agency.

• Seven Palestinian civilians, including a child, have been killed and several others wounded after Israeli forces bombed tents sheltering displaced people in the al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis city in southern Gaza.

• Medics at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah confirmed that the girl, identified as Razan Abu Zaher, died on Sunday due to complications arising from acute malnutrition.

• Between March and June, Unrwa's health centres conducted nearly 74,000 screenings for children under the age of five. These screenings revealed approximately 5,500 cases of severe acute malnutrition and over 800 were classified as the most critical.

• The UN’s humanitarian affairs office has warned that families in Gaza are enduring “catastrophic hunger,” with children “wasting away” and some dying before help can reach them.

• The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) has condemned Israel’s continued ban on international journalists entering Gaza, calling the situation a “livestream of horrors” that has lasted for 650 days.

• The Israeli army has issued new expulsion orders on Sunday, demanding the evacuation of additional areas in Deir al-Balah, located in the central Gaza Strip. 

• Tens of thousands of Moroccans took to the streets of the capital Rabat on Sunday, protesting against Israel's war on Gaza and calling for the reversal of the kingdom's normalisation deal with Israel.

Israeli forces have launched heavy air and artillery strikes near Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, an area sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians.

Footage published by Quds News Network shows thick clouds of smoke billowing over the area following the bombardment.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) has accused Israel of “starving civilians”, including a million children in Gaza, by blocking vital food and medicine deliveries into the besieged enclave.

Unrwa issued the warning on Sunday, calling on Israel to lift its blockade and allow humanitarian aid to flow freely. At militarised distribution sites run by the US- and Israel-backed GHF civilians trying to access the food are being shot and killed by the Israeli army.

Since the GHF was set up in late May, nearly 900 people have been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Sunday infant deaths caused by starvation are rising. “These heartbreaking cases were not caused by direct bombing but by starvation, the lack of baby formula and the absence of basic healthcare,” civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP, noting at least three such deaths in the past week alone.

The UN’s humanitarian affairs office warned on Sunday that families in Gaza are enduring “catastrophic hunger,” with children “wasting away” and some dying before help can reach them.

Read more: Gaza on brink of famine as UN says Israel is starving civilians

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) has condemned Israel’s continued ban on international journalists entering Gaza, calling the situation a “livestream of horrors” that has lasted for 650 days.

In a post on X, the agency said its staff are still operating on the ground “starving and exhausted,” and warned that “no one can claim they didn’t know”.

Unrwa repeated its urgent appeal to lift the siege and allow the entry of life-saving aid, including food and medicine, as Gaza’s humanitarian crisis deepens.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition says its vessel Handala, heading to Gaza with humanitarian aid, was sabotaged before it could leave the Italian port of Gallipoli.

According to the group, a rope had been tightly wound around the ship’s propeller and a corrosive substance was poured into the water tank, injuring two crew members.

Despite the sabotage, Handala has now set sail towards Gaza, carrying a group of international activists and essential supplies including baby formula, medication, and toys. The journey is expected to last about a week.

The International Committee to Break the Siege on Gaza condemned the incident and urged global powers to ensure the vessel’s protection, warning against potential acts of “Israeli piracy”.

This mission comes six weeks after the Madleen made a similar journey, with high-profile figures including activist Greta Thunberg and French-Palestinian MEP Rima Hassan on board.

The Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, has released a video threatening Gaza-based journalists covering the hunger crisis, including Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif.

Adraee dismissed the reports as “a fabricated and deceitful Hamas theatrical performance”.

In response, al-Sharif posted on X, calling the accusations part of Israel’s ongoing effort to “silence the truth” and “cover up a genocide unfolding in real time”.

The Israeli military has confirmed that another soldier has taken his own life—marking the fourth such case in just two weeks.

In a statement issued on Sunday, the army said Dan Phillipson, a trainee originally from Norway, died after shooting himself last Tuesday at a training facility in southern Israel. He later succumbed to his injuries in hospital.

Israeli media report that 19 soldiers have died by suicide since the beginning of the year, including 42 since the war on Gaza began.

Israeli political commentator Gideon Levy has accused the government of orchestrating a deliberate plan of ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

In a Haaretz opinion piece, Levy wrote: “Someone conceived it, there were discussions of pros and cons, alternatives were suggested, options of total cleansing vs. stages, and all done in air-conditioned conference rooms with minutes taken and decisions made.”

He said this marks a turning point in the war. “For the first time since the war of revenge in Gaza began, it’s clear that Israel has a plan – and it’s a far-reaching one. This is no longer a rolling war.”

Levy added: “There is a purpose to this war, and it’s a criminal one. One can no longer tell army commanders that their troops are dying for no reason: They are dying in a war of ethnic cleansing.”

The article refers to reported Israeli military plans to force Gaza’s entire population into a southern zone, which Levy likened to a concentration area.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has confirmed that he blocked a visa extension for Jonathan Whittall, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Writing in Hebrew on X, Saar said the decision followed what he called “biased and hostile conduct against Israel, which distorted reality, presented false reports, slandered Israel, and even violated the UN’s own rules on neutrality”.

“Whoever spreads lies about Israel – Israel will not work with them,” he declared.

Whittall recently testified on the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza and accused Israel of using hunger as a weapon. He also criticised the so-called GHF aid distribution sites, describing them as “created to kill”.

Palestinian political groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have issued a joint statement expressing deep alarm over the worsening humanitarian collapse in Gaza, calling it a “systematic genocide” driven by starvation, relentless bombing, and a suffocating blockade.

The factions accused Israel—backed by the United States and met with silence from European and international institutions—of waging a total war aimed at breaking Palestinian resistance.

They warned that the scale and brutality of Israeli attacks amount to war crimes under international law and surpass previous assaults in their severity.

The statement demanded that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government be held fully responsible for policies of siege and deliberate starvation. The United States, they said, must also be held accountable for enabling the offensive by refusing to pressure Israel to halt its campaign.

The factions condemned what they described as the complicity of the international community, particularly the European Union, for failing to act.

They called on Palestinians worldwide, along with Arab and Islamic countries, to step up political and media efforts to “stop the genocide” and “end the siege” on Gaza.